A lot of people drink milk for its calcium, to build strong
bones, but a new study claims it might actually be making bones more likely to
break.
The study comes from Uppsala University in Sweden and is published in the British
Medical Journal. Not only does milk contribute to higher likelihood of bone
fracture for women, but it raises mortality in both men and women. The
researchers asked 61,000 women and 45,000 men about their dietary habits,
including how often they consumed 96 particular foods, among them, milk,
cheese, and yogurt. They followed the women for 20 years and the men for 11
years, noting how many developed hip fractures and other bone fractures, and
how many died.The women not only gained no benefit from drinking more milk, but three or more glasses per day were associated with a significantly greater risk of bone fracture. For men and women both, the more milk they’d consumed, the greater the risk of death
The researchers used information from two other large studies that had focused on people's dietary habits and compared their habits to their health and rate of injury. Men were who drank milk three times a day had more cardiovascular problems, and both men and women had a higher oxidative stress level, which is common for elderly people or people with cancer.
"I've looked at fractures during the last 25 years. I've been puzzled by the question because there has again and again been a tendency of a higher risk of fracture with a higher intake of milk," lead author Karl Michaelsson, a professor at Uppsala University, told the Washington Post.
The cause of higher mortality and bone fracture may be a milk sugar called D-galactose, which is associated with oxidate stress and inflammation. A glass of milk has more galactose than other dairy products.
"With fermented cheese the level of galactose is very low. It's not as high as it is in milk," Michaelsson told the Post. "Yogurt also has the probiotic effect of bacteria."
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